


Skin to Skin

by tainry



Category: Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Human Holo, M/M, PNP, vr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 19:29:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5882728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tainry/pseuds/tainry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prowl and Optimus endure Soundwave's manipulation, but find the experience of being "human" interesting enough to explore further.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skin to Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Written in April 2009 for the Anon Kink Meme. I started it before the episode “Human Error” actually aired, (though I think we must have had hints about how that was going to work, because I'm not usually that prescient... XD) but kept on despite finding out how AU this is. ^___^ Also, I messed up the OP’s request. u.u;;;

The boat was just a tease, a torment, and anyway, it was beyond reach now. 

“No, Prime, wait!”

Of course Optimus didn’t listen, just dove right in, completely forgetting that he had no idea how to swim as a human. Completely forgetting to hold his breath. Prowl sprinted after him into the storm-tossed waves. A small part of Prowl’s mind noted that it should have been impossible for his slender human form to drag the much larger man, both of them drenched and weighed down by heavy clothing, from the grasp of this cyber-sea. Not if Soundwave’s sim was playing by the proper rules of physics. 

But drag him Prowl did, up onto the beach, collapsing beside his friend the moment they were beyond the reach of the water. Optimus was still, his skin a stark, clammy white beneath the tangled shock of black hair, his lips blue. “No,” Prowl said, rolling him onto his side, placing his fist carefully in Prime’s solar plexus, pushing in hard. “Come on.” It didn’t take much – small mercies – and then Prime was choking, gasping, breathing again though he shuddered uncontrollably, pale blue eyes open wide and unfocused. If they died in the sim, would their real bodies die too, or was that another lie? Could they afford to take the chance, either way? 

They had to get out of this wind and rain. A cabin, a cave…of course not, that would be too easy. There was only the sea, the beach, a narrow belt of brush-covered dunes, the forest; but if Soundwave had simply taken the topographical information whole from an actual setting... “Prime, Prime, come on, get up. You have to help me. We have to move.” He shook Prime roughly, and at last the unfocused eyes blinked and rolled to meet his urgent gaze. 

“S-s-s-s-sorry…” Prime struggled for speech through chattering teeth, confused by the experience, putting his fingers to his still blue-lipped mouth.

“Careful,” Prowl said, nevertheless tugging at him, helping him to rise, stumbling for the dubious shelter of the big trees. “Keep your tongue back or you could bite it.” Prowl’s jaw clattered too, and he too had never been cold, not like this, but his mind was working in cyberninja mode, calm and controlled. They staggered through the brush and wind-thrashed bracken, into dusky light among enormous boles. Redwoods, Prowl thought. Not the coast they were accustomed to. He squinted through the rain, searching for a downed tree, anything. 

There; a hollow, and an old, moss-covered fallen trunk at the bottom. They fell more than climbed down. Prowl helped Optimus into the crevice between tree and fern-covered ground, crawling in beside and on top of him. The wind was much less here. Fire. Fire would be best, but everything was too wet. All they had were these soft bodies, shivering hard enough to ache. Prowl had read about human survival techniques. It wasn’t cold enough to freeze, but they could still die of exposure. Skin to skin, they needed to keep their core temperatures up – well, and that wasn’t so different, was it. Prowl opened his leather jacket and the uniform shirt beneath. Very thorough sims these were, Prowl thought, growling. He pushed Optimus’ coat open and began to work on the buttons of his dress shirt. At least the ferns beneath insulated them from the ground.

“W-w-what…?” Prime tried to bat at Prowl’s hands, disconcertingly feeble, his eyes pale and unfocused again. 

Prowl kept at his task determinedly, pulling the unbuttoned shirt all the way open, moving on to the belts and trousers they were both encumbered by. With torsos almost entirely bare, he lay squarely on top of Prime, wrapping his arms around Prime’s neck to protect the thick blood vessels – simulated, slag it – that ran there. “Put your arms around my back,” he said. “We are in danger of hypothermia after that soaking.” He still had no idea what Soundwave’s purpose was in putting them through all this, though pure psychological warfare was as likely as anything else.

Slowly, Prime complied, arms shaking too hard to grip strongly. Prowl buried his face in Prime’s neck. His breath would help warm him where the veins were so large and so close to the surface of the skin. 

They didn’t sleep. Could they sleep? Consciousness wavered, but mostly they just endured, waiting for whatever Soundwave chose to throw at them next. 

oOo

They were still cold but not desperately so, and only in their legs, and the places where they weren’t touching each other or their ferny bed. Prowl was listening hard for any incursion, but he kept his eyes closed. From where his face still nestled in the crook of Prime’s neck he would be able to see nothing but Optimus’ jaw and chin anyway. 

“The rain stopped,” Optimus whispered. 

Prowl felt Prime’s voice – this at least unchanged – rumble through neck and chest, thrumming on Prowl’s lips and cheek. A subtle sensation not unlike static fled across his skin, not unpleasant. “Yes,” Prowl said, his lips brushing the soft skin of Prime’s throat, and Optimus twitched under him, as though Prime had felt the same thing. 

Strange, this feeling of skin on skin. How would Soundwave know what one human felt like to another? Prowl shuddered. Horrible thought – no, he did _not_ want to know how Soundwave might have discovered such a thing. He therefore assumed the sensory input to be false somehow. As interesting as it was. 

Optimus moved his head, looking around, Prowl surmised. The motion created irregular strips and patches of cold on their skin where they were no longer in contact. Prowl could feel through his body that Prime wanted to get up, investigate, find a way out. “Prowl?” A new tension in the body beneath his. Prime’s arms loosened for a moment, stiffly – they’d held each other like this for… hours? A day? – then tightened carefully. Was Prowl hurt? He knew what his leader was thinking. 

“Hush,” Prowl whispered against Prime’s neck, and again there was that small shiver. “Be silent, be still. Listen.” Prowl didn’t want to move. This simulated human body had certain…reflexes, responses. If they didn’t move, Prime might not notice, and Prowl would have time to master himself. How deep had Soundwave’s wires and code gotten into them? 

This heat, Prowl thought furiously, was in the wrong place. Too low, instead of in his chest, the proper seat of this kind of longing. These bodies had no armor or casings to part so they could bare their sparks to each other. No cables to connect… Well. No, that thought was not helping. Fortunately they were not alone in the forest.

Heavy footfalls passed close by, quadrupedal, Prowl thought. No sound of hydraulics or the hiss of metal sliding on metal. Something organic, then. And very large. The vibration reverberated through both ground and the tree-trunk that formed their slight shelter. A heavy, musky scent followed; nothing Prowl could identify with these limited, un-linked senses. It might be mammalian or reptilian. Very droll, Soundwave, to have simulated the Pleistocene. Or the Jurassic. At least the spike of fear had settled Prowl’s nether difficulty. 

Counting two hundred heartbeats, Prime’s, felt through his cheekbone, Prowl at last slowly wriggled sideways out from under the log and sat up. They put their clothes – still damp and leeching heat wherever they touched skin – in order, Prime needing help at first with belt and buttons. 

“How do you know how to do this?” Optimus whispered, as if that would keep Soundwave from hearing. Prowl smiled. 

“I spend all my time observing Earth creatures.” 

Prime’s answering grin was worth any disclosure. Prowl realized belatedly that his hands were still upon Prime’s belt. He withdrew them hastily and looked away, feeling heat rise in his face. 

“Prowl?”

“We should look for a freshwater stream,” Prowl said. He wasn’t certain how thorough the simulation was regarding thirst or starvation, and a stream or river would also provide them with direction and a potentially easier course to follow inland. Prime caught his shoulder as he started to climb out of the hollow. 

“Are you sure you’re all right?” 

“I’m fine…”

But as Prowl looked up at him to answer, Prime’s hand moved from his shoulder to cup the side of Prowl’s face, the broad thumb resting gently on the sharp point of Prowl’s cheekbone. Without thinking, he leaned into the touch. The heat in his face increased and he felt his breathing do something strange. Prime leaned down, peering into Prowl’s eyes with lips parted and a peculiar expression on his human – so alien, so familiar despite – face. Prowl wanted to—

No. Soundwave would get nothing. Not even the kindling of a smoldering emotion between an Autobot commander and one of his crew. “You’re the one who took that ill-advised swim,” Prowl said, more sharply than he meant to. “And tried to swallow half the ocean.” He slipped away from Prime, leaping up the hollow with his customary grace. 

oOo

It wasn’t a dinosaur. 

Prowl reached for throwing stars that weren’t there, and suddenly found his view obscured by the expanse of Prime’s back, placing himself between his smaller teammate and the…big shaggy…thing with sharp teeth. Dire wolf, maybe, Prowl thought absurdly. The Pleistocene, then. Terrific. 

The Dire wolf sprang, driving Prime to the ground, sinking fangs into his upthrust arm and Prime rolled, fighting just as savagely, just as silently and Prowl was stunned by the spray of hot red blood across one cheek – and then things went terribly wrong. 

They screamed as the connections were torn away – too many too quickly and then their minds slammed back into their own bodies. Ratchet fought to keep them from going into shock, cursing Bulkhead’s blind rage that was impossible to stop when the gentle mech saw his friends being tortured. Bumblebee huddled a short distance away with Sari, both of them wide-opticed with distress. They’d never heard Prowl and Prime scream like that before. 

oOo

Days, weeks passed. There was always more work to be done. A quiet moment was sometimes hard to come by, just when one wanted it most. But eventually the opportunity would come. Ratchet nudged Prime away from the monitor screens and jerked his head in the direction of Prowl’s room. The ninja-bot had just come in from patrol, and after a quick refuel in what could rather loosely be termed the “kitchen”, had rolled wearily off for a little solitude under his tree. Prime didn’t want to disturb him.

Ratchet kicked him in the ankle. “Go on. You two need to at least talk about it. Remember?”

“Yes, Ratchet.” Optimus ducked his head and smiled – and headed for Prowl’s closed door. 

There was only a short pause before the door opened to his knock. It closed and locked behind him as he stepped inside. Prowl stood as he often did, serene before the tree, his back to Optimus, but every line of his slim body taut and aware of his friend’s proximity. 

“It was Soundwave’s game, Optimus. You’ve been hurt, tormented before. So have I.” 

“I know. That wasn’t…entirely what I wanted to talk with you about.” 

Prowl laughed, soft and low. Not really a purr. Of course. They were too connected; Prime wouldn’t have missed the tenor of Prowl’s thoughts and transmissions once they’d been freed, or since. And that would have been all the data he’d need to correctly interpret some of Prowl’s actions and reactions within the sim. “Do we really need to _talk_ about that?” he asked, turning to face Prime, his smile a little crooked. 

They were not human, with human uncertainties; how they felt already spilled across the wavelengths of their energy signatures. Prime knelt and Prowl went to him, their optics focused on each other. But like humans, the first touch under the weight of the knowledge of the other’s regard was highly charged and full of meaning. Smooth armor shining black, reflecting the world more truly than Optimus’ brighter hues, limned in gold; strong, compassionate face whose mouth drew the optics without mercy; strength hidden in a slender build; broad chest within which pulsed a twice-given spark. Metal to metal, they pressed their bodies close, hands sliding over unyielding surfaces, forehelms met as fields meshed and they shivered not with cold.

Exchanged cables bound them more tightly still, opening wide the worlds of their thoughts. Prowl was silent, mouth open, helpless within a system finely tuned to pick up the slightest of inputs; Optimus murmured incoherently, cycling overheated air, his embrace as yet too careful with his greater strength. Nonetheless, their first conjoined overload was sweet; immersed in the patient, attenuated passion of a long-lived species as though immersed in hot, crystalline oil. They were reassured by the familiar shush and whirr of hydraulics, soft clangs and clinks of fingertips on plating, the unbreathing echoes in their voices, and, deep within, the low hum and pulse of their sparks – their truest selves. They curled around each other on the floor, sunlight fanning green and gold through the leaves, warming them as they clicked peacefully into recharge.

oOo

Of course they were curious. Soundwave's cruel little game hadn't exactly been conducive to exploration. There was also a sense between them of desiring to reclaim those fleeting sensations for their own, to divorce the pleasant aspects from the frightening context. 

The global nets were more full of things and virtual places than they had been fifty years previous. Prowl found one of the least skanky meetup spaces that nevertheless had very good sensory feeds. With more and more of the human population concentrating in cities, some people just wanted a nice peaceful spot to be alone with friends, without the inevitable crowds in parks, and without the perceived dangers of the wildlife – particularly insectoid wildlife – encountered in the habitat preserves. One could also "hang out" with friends in physically distant parts of the world. 

Prowl's impulse was to set up a completely private "room" or instance, but Prime reminded him that often the best hiding place was in plain sight. Soundwave was less likely to search for them – or find them – in a public area. So they became just another couple smooching on hillsides or beneath trees or straddling the quaint, old-fashioned brick walls that didn't really fence anything from anything else. If they were observed to be different in some way, it was only in the slow, focused intensity with which they kissed; positions rarely altering, hands mostly still, clenched in each other's clothing or with fingers laced gingerly through each other's hair. 

There came a time, inevitably, when small movements of hands and mouths weren’t enough. When logging out to interface in their natural bodies felt sometimes like a cheat, like chickening out. They hadn’t braved the full spectrum of the possibilities of their human avatars. Optimus’ kisses wandered off Prowl’s mouth into new territory. Across the jaw, brushing the ear, down to the strangely soft, warm skin of the throat. Prowl crooked his elbow behind Prime’s neck, gripping the arm of Prime’s greatcoat in his other fist as surges of heat, shocks almost, coursed through his body. His vision closed in – or perhaps he merely closed his eyes.

“Prime…hahh…I think…oh, I think we…nnnh should…”

“Private instance,” Prime murmured between kisses – and licks, where had he learned that? “Here’s…mmm…the code. Ready? Three. Two. One.”

The grassy hillside around them changed very little. Only the lighting, Prime having specified a later afternoon than the public area, which had corresponded to local Detroit time. The vivid, golden light made their skin glow so beautifully, their blue eyes an electric contrast. It was unbearable for their mouths to have been apart for so long. 

Pushing Optimus down into the fragrant grass, Prowl – still kissing him – leisurely set to work undoing buttons and buckles, leaving zippers as a last bastion of defense, should the alien haptic inputs prove too intense. Prowl wanted this, wanted everything about it, wanted to try everything while they had the chance; but he wasn’t certain how much Optimus would bear. He could feel that Optimus wasn’t certain himself, and resolved to proceed slowly. 

Now that they were far from any danger of hypothermia, Prowl could fully appreciate the broad musculature of Optimus’ chest and abdomen. Astride Prime’s hips, Prowl fanned his hands over the broad pectorals, delineating small ellipses for the friction, biting his lips to maintain control when Optimus yelped and arched as Prowl’s fingers brushed across his nipples. There was an alien beauty to these forms, more so than Prowl had ever appreciated before. Though perhaps this had to do with Optimus’ long, thick eyelashes and unruly forelock, the gentler planes of his face, the pink tinge flushing his high cheekbones, the sensuous curves of his lips – parted slightly now, breath rushing audibly between them. Prowl ran his hands over Prime’s torso, finding many places that were sensitive – collarbones, lower abdomen, all along the length of his sides – then rubbed gently at the nipples again just to watch Optimus shiver and hear him gasp. Fierce blue peeked narrowly at him from between black lashes. Yes, Prowl thought, unable to suppress a smirk, I am doing that on purpose. And you like it.

They were still entangled in sleeves. Prowl helped Prime – a brief distraction, letting the hot charge across their skin settle – and Prime helped Prowl, until their shoulders and Prowl’s back gleamed golden in the sunlight. Their coats were spread beneath Prime, a thin layer of artifice between him and the feathery grass. Prowl traced the branching river-courses of veins under Prime’s skin on his arms, following with his mouth, kissing wrists and inner elbows, tongue flicking the hollows of broad shoulders. Looking wasn’t enough, even beautiful as Optimus was to the eyes; hands, fingertips weren’t enough. Prowl wanted to know him in this form with all senses, as they knew each other in their native bodies. 

“This is so…s-strange,” Prime gasped. Prowl was inclined to silence, but Prime’s voice felt good, thrumming through the air, perceived with delicate membranes, perceived with the thrumming of his blood. Let him talk. Let that voice touch him as the air touched him, everywhere at once. Prowl busied his own mouth, sucking each of Prime’s fingers in turn, honing his tongue on their edges. Prime’s attempted words broke into pieces, lost, adrift on his moaning breath. 

Astride Prime in the way that he was, Prowl could feel Optimus’ reaction as well as his own, despite the layers of fabric between them. Again he instinctively felt that this heat bloomed too far down. This time he overrode his instinct, determined to embrace the experience as it came, to accept this foreign arousal and learn to speak its language. Prime’s fingers were in his hair, brushing over his ears, grasping his shoulders as Prowl lay down upon him, mouth finding all the places his hands had discovered, wringing new cries from that powerful throat. And in moving, writhing beneath him, Prime discovered the agonized respite from the heat and heaviness of the swollen pulse at the root of these bodies, even through the jeans. He rolled his hips, catching on quickly. Prowl grinned and sucked a nipple hard, slipping his fingertips beneath Prime’s waistband. 

“You want that so soon?” Prowl teased, before Prime’s eyes regained anything resembling focus.

“I…don’t know…I…I want…something, there’s something…nnneed…”

“Very well.” Squirming somewhat himself – the remaining garments had become uncomfortably tight – Prowl undid the button securing the waistband of Optimus’ jeans. He let his hand linger there, cupping the curve of heat while he watched Optimus toss his head from side to side, gasping, hips twitching. With one of Optimus’ thighs between his legs, Prowl understood that desperate ache. Curious, Prowl spread his fingers, molding his hand to every contour, stroking slowly, then slid his fingers down between Prime's legs, which Prime spread wider to accommodate the touch. It was an odd, exotic vulnerability. Prowl stared as Optimus arched his back, gasping, and curled his hips upward to rub himself against Prowl's hand. 

"What does that feel like?" Prowl asked, breathlessly fascinated. 

"Show you," Optimus panted, "in a klick. .. " 

Prowl chuckled and leaned down to kiss the midline groove on Prime's stomach, where the undone button had exposed another inch of skin. He moved his hands in long strokes over Prime's thighs and aft, intrigued by tensile flesh – soft by comparison, but firm to these hands. 

He wished there was a faster, easier way to extricate themselves from the last few garments, but Prowl supposed the process of slowly peeling each other out of tight jeans had its own charms. Sliding a hand up one long, long leg, back to Prime’s crotch without breaking contact, Prowl fumbled at the straining zipper. 

“Avatars,” Optimus gasped. 

“Mmwhat?”

“Avatars. Change …the skins…”

Prowl laughed, because it was the simplest thing to do, though it did defeat the purpose of the full experience. A flicker of thought and the last impediments of clothing were abruptly gone. Skin to skin, now there was nothing between – as close as human form could get to conjoined nerve-nets, the lacy map of movement and sensation. Prowl reached down. He had known that even in the faintly ridiculous form of these peculiar appendages, Optimus would be beautiful and strong. 

Prime sat up, looking down at himself and at Prowl, who knelt close beside him. Their arms slipped unconsciously around each other’s waists. These bodies were so fragile, could hurt each other so irreparably, so easily. No wonder so much of human social structure was built around this singular yet mundane act. Optimus, despite his shaking – exposed and uncertain – pulled Prowl in close for a tremulous kiss. Smiling, Prowl rested a hand on Optimus’ drawn-up knee. Not for long. Optimus, unused to being an inactive partner, caressed Prowl’s shoulder, trailing his hand down the arm, both of them so aware of the rigid heat untouched between them. Prowl moved his hand, up that long thigh, the same motion as before but lent so much greater intensity on bare skin. He repeated the motion on Optimus’ other leg, now stroking the inner thigh, fingers teasingly close to the exquisitely compelling area at the top of that thigh. Again he stopped, still, silent, watching Optimus’ flushed face with its enticingly dazed expression. 

Slowly, so that Optimus had plenty of warning, Prowl moved his hand upward, cupping fevered skin, wrapping his hand gently, loosely around the shaft. Prime’s hips jerked in a strangely stifled sort of wriggle, as though he was afraid to move but desperately wanted to. Prowl kissed the corner of his jaw and murmured into his ear, “Thrust your hips like you were doing before; you had the right idea.”

Bracing himself with one arm behind him like a support strut, Optimus obeyed. His head fell back, eyes closing, mouth opening; a concert of small expressions, nevertheless eloquent of innocent, abandoned passion. Prowl drank in every subtlety, every wordless moan and cry as Prime’s arousal focused and intensified.

“I’m…I’m …leaking,” Prime whispered unsteadily – weirded out but unwilling to stop the motion of his hips. 

“It’s lubrication,” Prowl explained. He was “leaking” too. There seemed to be a lot of it. Well, Prowl knew what this meeting site had originally been for, even if it had put on a more platonic face since. Prowl moved his thumb back and forth over Prime’s tip, spreading the moisture, gripping Optimus tighter as his skin grew slick. Prime bared his teeth, thrusting harder and faster. “That’s it,” Prowl murmured, panting, feeling as though he was himself about to burst. “Keep going, let go.” 

Soon, Prime’s movements became irregular, uncoordinated, breath hitching in his throat; he cried out as his whole body clenched in upon itself, and both of them were startled by the hot spatter of liquid. Prowl licked a droplet off his own forearm while Prime’s eyes were still closed. He found he had no words to describe the taste, never having tasted anything like it before. Was this what “salty” meant? He had no way to be certain. 

Prime fell back onto the hillside, skin hot and damp, eyes closed. Prowl followed him down, smiling despite the steady pull and ache of his own arousal. He had read that human males often fell asleep after completion – watching Optimus sleep, so peaceful, so trusting and relaxed, struck Prowl as a worthy experience. He stroked Prime’s cheek gently and kissed his temple. So beautiful, he thought, watching Prime’s breathing grow slow and steady. A warm breeze ruffled their hair. The sunlight was lazing toward amber, and the air carried the scents of blowing grass and flowers beginning to close for the night. Optimus by starlight, yes, that was something Prowl wanted to see as well. 

With no warning – or not enough for Prowl to react in this form – Optimus growled and rolled, pinning Prowl down. Fierce blue eyes blazed above that sensuous mouth, a mouth that was working its way inexorably, slowly down Prowl’s narrow body. “So,” he whispered, grinning against Prowl’s bare hip, “what does it feel like to you?” And with hands and mouth, he began to explore, testing and tasting while Prowl gasped and writhed.

Drowning in new sensations – human senses might be poor in other areas, but their skin was orders of magnitude more perceptive than armor-bound bots’ – Prowl clutched helplessly at the grass, or sometimes Optimus’ hair or shoulders, unable to form coherent thoughts under the liquid heat of Prime’s lips and tongue. Prime’s hands slipped underneath, cradling Prowl’s small buttocks, holding him steady while Optimus did wondrous things with his mouth. And then, taking Prowl in wholly, Optimus began to hum. 

Prowl’s mouth opened wide as though to give voice to endless shouts, but he could make no sound, hear nothing except the roaring of his blood and gasping breath. 

When he could see again, Prowl found Optimus had gathered him into his arms, warm and still breathless in the soft grass as the stars came out above them. Prime’s expression was endearingly bemused. Prowl smiled. He knew there was so much more they could experience in these bodies. Based on what they had already felt so briefly, it was going to be processor-bendingly wonderful. He snuggled more deeply into Prime’s embrace. 

oOo

Optimus stroked his thumb back and forth over Prowl’s earlobe. It felt quite nice, and Prowl – long eyes closing and opening in slow motion – noted that most mechs’ audials were sensitive, too. He was about to suggest they move to a private instance.

"SO!” Bumblebee yelled at their heads. “THIS is where you two have been sneaking off to together!" He’d been approaching – well, all right, sneaking from shrubbery to shrubbery to tree to boulder – for at least ten or fifteen cycles. And Prime and Prowl – Prowl! – hadn’t taken the least bit of notice. That was just not right. 

Prowl leapt from Prime’s arms to land atop the wall several feet away, fists clenched, teeth bared, body poised for fight and flight. 

Optimus sighed. "Hello, Bumblebee." 

Ratchet and Bulkhead, Bulkhead carrying Sari on his shoulders, once they saw what was going on, had apparently tried to keep Bee from interrupting. Which worked about as well as it usually did. Oh dear. But since the damage was done, they moseyed over to say hello, and apologize, and drag Bee off if necessary. 

“What are you guys doing, like, exchanging bodily fluids and slag?” Bee wanted to know, still leaning over Prime, hands on hips. 

Prowl growled. 

“Uh,” said Prime. “Technically, since this is a virtual simulation, no. Mostly, we just kiss.” 

“Er,” Prowl said, blushing, his expression changing abruptly. 

“Augh!” Bulkhead cried. “Lalalalalala we are not hearing about squishy human stuff!” Ratchet looked like he completely agreed. 

Sari crossed her arms, scowling. “Shut up! Just because it's human stuff doesn't make it... icky. Kinda. ...Okay, kissing with tongue like that is really gross.” 

Bulkhead looked at her askance. “Yeah, well you're underage.”

Sari gave him A Looktm. “Do you mean I can’t appreciate tongue kissing because I’m underage or that I’m not allowed to even be present for these kinds of conversations because I’m underage?”

“Uh…” Bulkhead gave the appearance of wanting to scratch his head without actually doing so. Ratchet covered his face with one hand. 

“There are about three more people here than need to be part of this conversation already,” the old medic grumbled, and taking Bulkhead’s elbow, steered them both toward the center of the virtual park where there was a small carnival. It was still possible to distract Sari with equilibrium-slagging rides and sugary nuggets – even simulated ones. 

Prime pulled Bee close to talk to him quietly. "Mostly – mostly – we just kiss. But sometimes that feels so nice we ... want to touch each other more than just with our mouths. So we move to a private instance and remove most or all of this clothing stuff. And we touch each other skin to skin. It's kind of odd, and it took some getting used to, but it's also rather nice for the two of us.” 

“Is it that much better than between bots?” 

“No. It's not better at all. It's just... different. Interesting and new. That's all. You know Prowl and I interface as bots like everyone else, too.” 

“Oh good, at least you’re not total pervs.” 

“Hey!” Prime and Prowl said together.


End file.
